


Dive of the Valkyrie

by Routcliffe



Series: Halvbakt: Short Fantasies [1]
Category: Ylvis
Genre: Damsel in Distress, Gen, Silver Jumpsuits, Urban Fantasy, Ylvis møter veggen, tw: aquaphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 20:43:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10395681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Routcliffe/pseuds/Routcliffe
Summary: The year is 2008.  Magic most emphatically does not exist.  But one of Bård’s teammates has a lot of trouble getting through the wall, and even more trouble showing up on camera, and when there’s trouble, there’s no one more equipped to handle it than Ylvis.A short fic set in the same universe as Fortryllelse og Bakverk.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in autumn 2008, after the events of _Unaired Episodes_. It's probable that _Ylvis Møter Veggen_ was filmed much earlier and only aired in autumn, but I took some liberties with the timeline because I was born to be a rebel and there's no stopping me. Muhahahahaha.
> 
> Haha.
> 
> Ha.

“The Blue Team’s theme may be cuddly animals, but I don’t think cuddling is going to help them,” Bård said. Then he turned to Vegard and added, in joyous mockery, “...unless it’s to help them dry off afterward!” With practiced timing, Bård waited for the laughter and applause to die down. “In contrast, Red Team’s theme for today is finesse and artistry, so I have chosen a demonstration ski jumper and a black metal drummer. Please welcome Svava Jeylaani Faduma and Kim Rønning!”

The two of them came jogging out, the small slight brown woman and the tall solid white man. Bård greeted Kim with a handshake and a clasp of his arm, and turned to hug Svava, but something in her body language said that a handshake would be better there as well. As he touched her arm, he thought the back of his hand brushed something downy soft, but there was nothing there, and he determined to think no more of it.

“I understand,” Kjetil André Aamodt said, “that the other thing you two share in common, besides finesse of course, is that both of you are quite new to television?”

“First time in a non-musical capacity,” Kim said with a shy smile. “I’m still not sure about it.”

“And Svava, you jump for crowds of hundreds in Trysil, but this is your first time in front of a camera.”

“Yes,” she said quietly. She was smiling but clearly petrified.

“But you refuse all offers to compete professionally.”

“I was born with a condition. It doesn’t affect my show jumping, but I think it would be ill-advised for me to turn competitive.”

“But you’re here with us today,” Aamodt said, “and I’m sure Bård and Kim couldn’t be happier.” And this was true--it was nice to have a small and light athletic person--but Bård hadn’t known about this condition, or her shyness. He made a mental note to be extra careful and encouraging with both of his teammates, and to direct all his teasing at the Blue Team. 

Svava smiled a pained little smile. “Yes, well, we’ll see how it goes.”

***

“Three, two, one!” the audience chanted, and then Kjersti Idem crowed, “Here comes the wall!”

“Okay,” Bård said, “both of us down, right arm out.”

Svava wasn’t sure what she’d been thinking when she’d said yes. Well no, if she was honest she knew exactly what she’d been thinking and it had been silly. It was like knowing that Thursday is the eighth and Grandpa’s birthday is the eighth and today is Thursday, being aware of all of these things very clearly, and yet never putting them together to realize that today is the day you should wish Grandpa a happy birthday. She knew the tops of her wings were higher than her shoulders when they were folded, and at their flattest they extended about three inches from her back. She also knew that on camera they showed up as distortion. She knew that the styrofoam walls were not cut with winged people in mind. But she had thought, in that wild moment on the phone, Oh, it would be on camera, so it was all right. As if their not showing up on recordings would somehow make them less corporeal. And she’d said yes. 

She couldn’t actually fly--the solid bones she’d inherited from her father made her far too heavy--but the wings let her glide for a few seconds on the jumps. To use them to compete against full humans would be cheating, but the demonstrations were all right. People came to her and said that her demos had moved them or their children to take up the sport, and it made her feel wonderful: instead of using her advantage to beat humans, she was inspiring them to their own heights. It felt good, and brought her some regional fame, and that was why _Ylvis Meets the Wall_ had come calling. 

The styrofoam wall swept over her. She tried to keep her arm out and everything else as small as possible, and for one wonderful moment, she thought she would make it. Then the wall caught her wings and dragged her out of the play area, into the water. The Blue Team hooted, and Bård grinned and helped her out of the water. With her waterlogged feathers, she needed it.

“Svava, what happened there?” Kjersti chirped.

“Those were bloody small holes,” Bård accused. 

“Let’s see the replay,” Kjersti said. “Oh... wait. They’re telling me the replay’s unavailable. Svava, can _you_ tell us what went wrong? It looked like you were both clear and then it all went downhill fast.”

“Downhill fast has never been the problem,” Svava said, hoping that the darkness of her complexion and the water streaming from her ringlets would hide her tears. It must have; the audience laughed at her joke. She swiped a hand across her face. “I thought I was through and then it caught me. I’m sorry.”

Bård squeezed her shoulder. “You have nothing to apologize for,” he murmured.

Vegard’s nature show host, Marie, had gotten through the single wall, as had Kim. Vegard himself had failed to lift his leg enough to clear the first double wall, and he’d been pulled in while Olav, who’d played a monkey on a children’s show, stayed dry. So the score was tied, now. Not so bad.

Marie and Olav got a very acrobatic wall. Olav got through; Marie’s shoe caught on the edge of her cutout, and as Vegard bellowed, the wall dragged her out over the water. Svava became aware that she was shouting with the rest of them. Then the impossible happened: Olav grabbed Marie’s shoulders and gave a mighty yank, and Marie popped out of her shoe and somersaulted back onto the play area, flat on her back. The applause was thunderous. 

Vegard rushed to Olav’s side, and after a few quick words they helped Marie sit. Svava felt a flicker of alarm. She started forward, wondering if her first aid training might be needed, but as the other Blues hauled Marie to her feet, it was clear that she was helpless with laughter. She had mostly calmed down by the time Aamodt came over and returned her orange mesh sneaker. “I must say, that was spectacular,” he said.

“Olav deserves the credit for that,” Marie said, still grinning broadly. “I’m just glad I was wearing a helmet.”

“Indeed, safety first,” Aamodt said. “Let’s see that again!” It was hard not to applaud at the replay. 

Bård and Kim did the next wall, and didn’t do nearly so well: Kim’s solid midsection caught on a corner, and he hung in the air, flailing. Vegard sank to his knees on the edge of the pool, pounding the floor and giggling. Then the wall let go and Kim fell into the water with a splash that drenched Vegard. He spluttered momentarily before laughing even harder. Bård snuck up behind him and pushed him in.

Meanwhile, Kim trudged back to the red bar, dripping. Svava was tempted to hug him, but he might hug back. She settled for touching his elbow and whispering, “Vegard deserved that.” 

For the Brother Against Brother round, Bård made Vegard wear a Carmen Miranda-style hat, piled high with fresh fruit. He wrapped a flowered skirt around Vegard’s waist and added big hoopy clip-on earrings, cackling, while Vegard folded his arms and looked cross. When Bård had walked away, though, and the wall was coming, Vegard shook his hips and did a few samba steps. A lime rolled off the top of the hat, bounced once, and landed in the water. Five seconds later, the rest of the fruit followed, Vegard along with it.

“It was the earrings,” he told Kjersti after the replay, as the crew fished the fruit out of the pool with a scoop net. “They’re very distracting. They _pinch_.”

“And what have you chosen to make things more interesting for your dear brother?” Kjersti asked sweetly.

“Noise,” Vegard said. “He is going to face the wall, and my team is going to stand on the edge and make as much noise as we can.”

“Ooh, I cringe!” Bård said, and illustrated this theatrically. 

The wall came at Bård. Vegard and Marie and Olav, who had surrounded the pool, screamed inarticulately at the top of their lungs, to no discernible effect. As the wall was nearly on top of Bård, Olav drew out an airhorn and blasted it. Bård jerked away from the sound, and the wall hit him, and he toppled into the pool. 

“I take full responsibility for that,” he said to Aamodt after he’d crawled out, dripping. He stuck a finger in his ear. “Bloody hell.”

“That was _mean_ ,” Svava confided to Kim during the commercial break.

“Do you have siblings?” Kim asked. 

“No.” She gave him a half smile. “I’m a spoiled only child.”

“My sisters made me eat an entire cabbage once. Raw.” Kim appeared to think it over. “They’re probably why I grew up wanting to hit things.”

The Blue Team lost the Quiz Wall. The question was, “Which of the following is not in Kvæfjordkake?” Olav darted over to “Meringue” at the last minute, getting pushed into the water. “I wasn’t sure, and I thought if each of us chose a different answer, at least one of us would have it right,” he said sheepishly.

Aamodt chuckled. “A worthy strategy! And how does it work? _Zero_ points.”

Red Team’s question was, “What is the fifth word in ‘Panneben’?” The answer was “Munnelipp,” clear and simple. Svava stood behind Kim, and let him break through the thin styrofoam of the wall. She’d made it through one wall, at least.

Blue Team made it through the third double wall while wearing mirror glasses that reversed things left and right. Vegard stuck a hand out for orientation and barked instructions, and he and Olav managed. 

For the third double wall, Bård chose Svava. 

They were given mirrors. The hole was a narrow rectangle with two notches cut out at the top. Bård shuffled them around a bit, first so that they were front to front, but her wings weren’t going to go through, there was no question about that, and she turned. He seemed to understand, and put his hands on her shoulders, and drew her close. He had to feel her wings, her radialia were pressing into his chest, and he seemed to be curling his back a little to accommodate them. She moved her head a little, and the styrofoam scraped her nose, but they were through!

“Why the last-minute shuffle?” Kjersti asked as they jogged back to the platform. “You looked in fine form front to front, and then Svava, you wanted to turn and make life more complicated. Did the mirror confuse you?”

“I guess so,” she said, with a little shrug.

“Can we see the replay? No, they’re telling me, we are _still_ having technical difficulties, so whether it’s a good idea or not, Bård, we have to trust what you tell us.”

“It’s the feet,” Bård said. “They cause some distance, like so, so it’s nicer just to spoon a little.” He rested his chin on top of Svava’s head and lightly squeezed her shoulders, this time giving her wings a wide berth. 

“Awwww,” Kjersti crooned. “And what does spooning get you? _Twenty-five points_!”

Svava turned in Bård’s arms and hugged him impulsively. He hugged back. Her stomach flipflopped, but he only laid a gentle hand on one wing, and the other on the small of her back, and they danced a little celebratory dance. 

Next was the first triple round, and both teams made it through, Blue by making a star out of legs and arms, and Red by having Svava and Kim crouch in the middle while Bård leapfrogged over them very very carefully. For the second triple round, Blue Team got through by dangling Vegard upside down by his ankles, something for which, judging by his squawks and giddy laughter, he was not entirely prepared. Then Kim and Bård and Svava were up again.

The hole was such that two would have to lift the third to about the shoulder height of an average man, and then jump. Svava thought she could hold Bård up at the right height--she was quite strong--but he and Kim scooped her up instead. Her wings caught the top of the hole, and she tumbled out of their hands, sending everyone into the pool.

Bård rose up from the water, dripping and gleeful. “That is _cold_!” he roared. He put an arm around Kim and reached out for Svava, but she pretended not to see, and crawled out. She turned with the intention of offering him an arm up, but he and Kim were already on the edge. Bård squeezed water from his hair and flicked it at Vegard, who was too far away to get wetter, but gave him the finger nonetheless.

“Red Team, what happened there?” Kjersti demanded, as they returned, dripping, to the red bar. “I’d love to see the replay, but the crew says it’s still not going to happen.”

“Good old Norwegian quality,” Bård said, as his brother applauded. “No, it was my fault. I think I lifted Svava too high.”

“Me too,” said Kim. “She was even lighter than I thought.”

“It was my fault,” Svava said, on the edge of tears again. “I just don’t think I have the kind of body that goes through those holes well.”

“Such a responsible, self-effacing team! And what do you get for your community-mindedness? _Zero_ points.”

Olav and Marie rejoiced. Vegard clapped, but he wasn’t smiling. He was staring at her. Did he suspect something too? Bård had to know, but he was being lovely about it, and she didn’t trust Vegard to do the same. One more wall, with which they most certainly would not trust her, and then she would have to change in a hurry and hop right onto the tram. If Vegard did try to confront her, maybe she could plead cramps; that usually made men recoil in disgust.

Bård touched Svava’s arm as they got back to their platform. “You’ve done really well,” he said quietly. 

“Thank you,” she said, dashing away tears. “You’re very kind.”

***

Bård knew that there was a very good chance that he was throwing the game. He also knew that he had a crying teammate, and further that a part of his mind was begging, pleading, shrieking at him not to notice the evidence of his own two hands, to forget Svava entirely. But games always put him in a fey, dangerous mood, and anyway he didn’t trust any part of him that wanted him to ignore a person in pain. Winning meant a medal and a bunch of flowers when last week’s weren’t even dead yet. He could stand to do without them.

“It’s time for the Final Wall,” Kjersti said, “and Red Team is twenty-five points behind. But the competition’s not over, because any team making it through the wall will gain fifty points, and any team that ends up in the water will lose fifty points. Bård, Vegard, who will you select?”

“I believe I can take responsibility for this one,” Vegard said, stepping forward with a little swagger. 

“Whereas I am chivalrous,” Bård said, “and will send as my champion the lovely Svava.”

She shot him a look. There was alarm in her wide amber eyes.

He put a hand on her arm, and murmured, “You’re the smallest and the lightest, and you can jump. No matter what happens out there, _I_ think you’re worth gambling on.”

“I’m going to be disappointing,” she warned.

“If you can’t manage victory, go for comedy,” he said. “Either way, the outcome is good.”

Vegard and Svava took their places in the play area. “Three, two, one... Here comes the wall!”

There were two circles, the height of Svava’s head and Vegard’s chest. Svava’s face lit up, and she leapt easily through hers, clearing it handily... only to be jerked out of the air by her legs, when the wall cracked and shifted under Vegard’s struggling form. Vegard slid into the water with a strangled yell, and came up laughing. Svava hit the water with a little scream, and didn’t come up at all.

***

Underwater, Svava struggled and pulled and flailed. At first she tried not to move in ways that hurt, but then she began to realize that there was no easy way to do this, that she was trapped and she was going to die if she couldn’t get her head above the surface. She pulled again, wrenched hard, and the broken edges of her wing bones ground together, but she was still stuck.

She’d been through, she’d been _through_ , and then the wall had come down around her. She'd spread her wings in shock. There had been a pinch, and a snap, and searing pain as she hit the water. Her wing was wedged tight. She was trapped under the wall, and she was going to drown in this ridiculous pool in this silver jumpsuit because no one would be able to see what was wrong...

***

Bård shouldn’t have interpreted Vegard’s second shout as anything other than frustration at losing the round, but somehow he knew it had all gone badly wrong. Something had already sent him running to the edge; now he jumped in.

It was a one-in-a-million thing. The piece of wall had given way, but when it had spilled Vegard into the water, instead of coming down it had swung, corners wedging between the edges of the piece that was still intact and attached to the brackets. It must have pinched shut on Svava’s hair, or part of her outfit. But all he could see was the open gap between the bottom of the wall and the surface of the pool. 

Vegard had been feeling for the problem too, apparently, and he seemed to be cupping thin air. “Work on the other side,” he said, pulling his hand out from under the wall. “She needs air.” Without waiting, he took a huge breath and disappeared under the surface.

***

The hand that had been exploring Svava’s wing withdrew, and this meant they were leaving her to die, but at least he was going to stop pulling now, and that was a mercy. As the hand had tugged sharply, again and again, it had been all she could do to resist the temptation to scream, which would have filled her lungs with water. She did kick a couple of times. It was hard to tell which hurt worse, the pain in her wing or the burning in her lungs.

Then a blue-helmeted silver form loomed in front of her, and Vegard had his mouth on hers, and she did suck in a breath in surprise. It was air. Thin and faintly garlicky, but still serviceable. There wasn’t enough of it.

Vegard closed his lips, squeezed her arm, and pulled away. Panicked, she clutched at him, but he only just rose above the surface and then he was back, cheeks puffed, with more air.

***

Bård couldn’t _see_ anything, and he couldn’t puzzle out the sodden shape he felt lodged in the crack of the styrofoam. It wasn’t fabric and it wasn’t hair. When he touched it, Svava flinched, her back muscles showing rigid under the silver jumpsuit, but Vegard’s explorations had given him a rough idea of its shape (and when he had a spare moment he would have to sit and puzzle that out, but now was not the time). Shoving at the styrofoam only wedged the wall’s edges tighter together, making Svava jerk.

By now others were realizing that something was wrong, and figures clustered around the edge of the pool. “Knife,” Bård barked, holding a hand out. One of the grips handed him a knife, unfolded, handle first. With a nod of thanks, he plunged it into the styrofoam, on the side of the crack still attached to the frame, and made a curved cut. And then he had to cut again, on an angle, because the knife was nowhere near long enough to get through in one go. There was one wedge out, and two...

It would have been very rational, at this point, to worry about Svava, who had been under the surface for about two minutes now, but something in the back of his mind told her that she was okay for the moment, if he could just get her unstuck. Three wedges, and... Not quite yet. With a hand exploring the wall first to make sure he didn’t hit anything alive, he drove the knife in again. He dragged it through the styrofoam, carving out another wedge, and Svava’s silvery back pulled free as the wall let her go. Vegard brought her to the surface and she drew a whooping breath. As the tension on the styrofoam released, the piece came crashing down. Bård first batted the big piece away from Svava and his brother, and then floated it over to them.

With hands gone clumsy from cold and low oxygen, Vegard helped Svava prop herself up on the piece and float, gasping. Then he stretched out beside her, chest heaving. 

There was blood in the water. Bård watched, mesmerized, as each drop materialized in thin air under nothing at all, and struck the surface, and formed a threaded red plume before dissipating.

***

Strong hands, Aamodt and Kjersti and the three other contestants working together, lifted Svava out of the water. She leaned against the nearest warm body and sobbed. She’d ruined their show, and nearly gotten herself killed, and her wing, oh gods her wing...

“Are you okay?” Aamodt asked, bending close to her ear.

She couldn’t talk for crying, but she nodded.

The people in the closest seats had vacated them. As Svava sank into one, sideways, Kjersti, all her chirpiness gone, said, “They’re bringing extra robes, and when you’re ready Tore will drive you to the hospital.”

“No hospital,” she begged. She’d have to go, of course, but she’d go to Lady Brighid’s. She wondered if she dared take the tram, when the slightest jostle would be agony.

“No,” Vegard said, squelching up to her, still a bit winded. “Bård and I can drive her.”

“Sit back though, dear, you’ll be more comfortable,” Kjersti said, taking her by the shoulder. Svava flinched.

Bård’s hand fell on Kjersti’s wrist. “I think it hurts to lean back,” he said. “We’ve got her, haven’t we?” And he and Vegard settled into the seats on either side of her. When the robes came, rushed out by Nanne and Fredrik, the brothers gently, gently hung one over each of her shoulders and wrapped them around her, working by touch to wrap them under her wings, both anxiously watching her face for signs of distress. 

***

They walked her backstage, and offered to give her a moment of privacy, but there was no way she could change without help. She briefly considered leaving the suit on and letting them cut it off at the hospital before she asked the brothers to stay. 

They were utterly professional. Vegard was the one who gingerly reached under her wings and undid the silver jumpsuit--she’d only done it halfway up at the back anyway--and eased it down so that all she had to do was step out of it. “I think it’s better if you get the underwear,” he said, gesturing. When she looked doubtful, he said, “Everything’s wet, and there’s no telling how long it will be before you can change, and you don’t need a yeast infection on top of everything else. Go on, I’ll turn around if you’re shy.” 

As Vegard went to hang up the jumpsuit and helmet and her underwear--the sports bra would have to stay on for now--Bård was waiting with her street clothes. She watched him run curious hands over the wing-cuts in her blouse and sweater, the two slits in the back, buttons at the top of each. Then he became all business, holding her elbow to steady her as she put on the dry underwear and sweatpants, and helping her on with her blouse. “I’ll just carry the sweater,” she said, at a loss. 

“No no no,” Vegard said. “It’s chilly out there, and you’re still wet.”

“I don’t think you’ll be very comfortable if you start to shiver,” Bård said. In the end, he found a dry spot and formed the sweater into a ring at her feet, so that she could step into it from the bottom, instead of trying to wrestle it over her head. He helped her pull it up, and didn’t button it. Then they wrapped their own coats around her as they’d done with the robes. 

They left via the back exit, Bård and Vegard on either side of her. Gods, what was she going to do? After her father had died of cancer, her mother had moved to the suburbs of Hel to be closer to him. It was a very long way to travel. Neither of them had particularly approved of her career choice. This was one summons she really didn’t want to send.

The brothers walked her to a Chevy Touran, and Vegard opened the passenger door. She stared with trepidation at the front seat. “I don’t know how I’m going to manage,” she said.

“Hey, hey,” Bård soothed, giving her wrist a gentle little squeeze.

Vegard stood in front of the problem, frowning. He looked back at Svava, and then at the seat. “I’ve done this before,” he said softly, wonderingly. Then he directed her to crawl in and sit sideways, back to the door. He and Bård pulled the seatbelt over her head as wide as it would go, so that she was secured by the lap belt, with the shoulder strap behind her. There was a folded blanket between her shoulder blades, to give the broken wing some support. “Not the most secure setup, but I’ll drive very carefully and hope the police don’t look too closely.”

“They know we’re safe,” Bård countered with a grin. “You and I are still wearing the helmets.” 

***

The directions Svava gave them led to a forbidding ramshackle apartment building in Gamle Oslo. She wanted to be dropped at the door, but they balked at just leaving her in a place that exuded such an aura of dread. But just inside the doors the light jumped, somehow, and this was a proper hospital emergency room. 

On the other side of Svava, Vegard made a soft, choked noise. “Bloody hell!”

Bård resolutely ignored the woman clutching a strip of birch bark to her flesh with a sap-soaked towel, and the pair of coughing little girls who held one basin of jewels coated in bloody saliva and another filled with a seething knot of toads, and most especially the twitching man in the corner who spilled light from every orifice while his two friends urged him to hang on. He found the right desk, and they brought Svava over to it. 

She hung back. “Thank you both so much,” she said. “I’ll be okay from here.”

“Are you sure?” Bård pressed.

“You should get back to the studio. You’ve saved me in so many ways...” She carefully plucked their coats off her shoulders and handed them back. “If you stay with me, I don’t think you could help me, and it could make things really complicated for you, and I would feel terrible.”

Up to this moment, Bård would have said that he and Vegard were constitutionally incapable of just dropping someone off at the emergency room and leaving them there, but his gut was insistent that he didn’t belong here, that to stay here would open up doors that were well shut, and he knew without looking that things were getting to be too much for Vegard, too. “All right,” he said. “I don’t understand everything, but I think under the circumstances you were probably really brave today.” 

“I ruined your show,” she said miserably. “I should have known... I should have _thought_.”

“Don’t think about that,” Vegard said. “The most important thing is that you’re safe. Listen, do you have anyone you can call?”

“My mom,” she said. Bård was pretty sure, from her face, that that was not going to be a happy phone call. She must have seen that he saw, because she said, “I’ll be okay.” 

They left her with their phone numbers, urging her to call if she needed them, knowing that she wouldn’t. Then they emerged into the clean autumn air. The sun had just set, and the sky was a clear, limpid blue. Bård felt profoundly relieved, as if he’d just had his own near miss. He was shaking in his silver jumpsuit, although that might just have been the cold. 

They pulled into traffic. “When did you do this before?” Bård demanded. 

Vegard waited until he was finished changing lanes to answer. “What? This morning, of course.” 

“No, no, not this drive. We were trying to get Svava into the seat and you said you’d done this before.”

“I... I don’t know. It just rang a bell, is all. I remember... a van. A person who got hurt and it was going to be hard for them to ride normally. You don’t believe me?”

“I believe you,” Bård said. “I just... I’m trying...”

“Trying?” Vegard prompted, his brow furrowed.

“Never mind. It’s gone.”

***

The studio had emptied out by the time they got back. Aamodt met them in the dressing room, as they were skinning off their silver jumpsuits. “Is she all right?”

“She’s fine,” Bård said. “We took her home.”

“We did?” Vegard said, frowning. “I thought we were taking her to the hospital.”

“But she wanted that apartment building instead,” Bård reminded him. “Remember?”

Vegard shook his head and pulled his helmet off. “It’s all... Anyway. What’s going to happen?”

“We cut it short and sent everyone home,” Aamodt said, shaking his head. “There’s no salvaging that episode. If it was one thing or the other, we might have been able to, but between the problems with the cameras and the accident...”

“It’s not her fault,” Vegard said immediately. “The wall pinched her.”

“The techs are still trying to figure that out,” Aamodt said. “None of us could see what she got stuck on, and the cameras were too much a mess to pick anything up.”

“Well, she wasn’t down there for fun,” Bård sighed.

“None of us thinks that, but if we’ve got a safety hazard, we need to know about it so that we can fix it.” 

“That condition she was talking about,” Vegard said. “It was acting up.”

“I thought you just said the wall pinched her,” Aamodt said. 

“Uh-huh.” Aamodt looked at him for a long time, and Vegard just lifted one shoulder in a shrug.

Bård put a hand on Aamodt’s shoulder. “You're pretty new to this, aren't you? You get used to it after awhile. Failing cameras. Missing time. Weird injuries.” 

“Things that don’t line up properly,” Vegard added. “Memories that turn gold and dissolve when you turn away. Getting peeked at from behind a curtain and getting slapped when you try to peek back. It’s all part of showbiz.”

Aamodt’s face was incredulous. “Are you on drugs?”

“I have ointment for my hands,” Vegard said, “but I use that mainly at night before going to bed. That’s not important. The important thing is that she’s going to be okay.”

Aamodt’s brow furrowed. “Who’s going to be okay?”

“The jumping girl who fell,” Bård said. “Sarah.”

“Sana,” Vegard corrected. “No. Sophia?”

“I would have remembered a Sophia,” Bård said.

“Oh, that’s right,” Aamodt said softly. “Happened right at the end, didn’t it? Did someone make sure she was okay?”

“She was going to be,” Vegard said.

“Yes,” agreed Bård, “I remember that much.”


End file.
